If you are considering buying a modded system or even worse selling one, you may want to cease and desist according to a report from msnbc.com. More than 30 businesses and homes were raided by federal agents to put the exclamation on a year long probe into gaming. While the legality to mod your own system is in a bit of a gray area, it is very illegal to copy games that are not your own and even more illegal to sell the games on a modded system. Its sort of like owning a paintball gun. You can legally have it, but unless you are playing paintball on a designated range, chances are you are breaking the law. Owning a mod chip does not automatically make you guilty, but common sense would tell a reasonable mind that you are trying to subvert some copyright law and thats where they get you. There have also been reports of Xbox Live Memberships being revoked because of the detection of modded hardware and software. While the report does not go into much if any detail on how the accused were caught, it is safe to say there was a sting on the sale and purchase of these systems.
I am usually not one to side with the government on some very stringent copyright laws, I have to say I do agree with this course of action. Video games cost a lot of money as you all well know and modded software can either drive the price up or create the ability to cheat on Live play and that is just not acceptable. Notice the systems targeted, PS2, PS3, Wii, and Xbox360 are all still alive and kicking. When a system becomes defunct, it usually gives some leeway, but then again, do you really want an agent breaking down your door because you had to play NFL2K2? I guess the lesson here is that it does not matter how good you are of a computer designer/engineer/scientist, the Feds will remain several steps ahead.
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[...] Contact the Webmaster Link to Article video games Feds Complete Huge Gaming Mod Bust » Posted at Loot Ninja on Thursday, [...]
I agree. Modding for piracy doesn’t help the industry. I don’t mind homebrew, I actually think it’s a good thing for everyone. But stealing games doesn’t help future development
[...] a press release today coming out in support of the recent raids in the US on modders, which we reported earlier today. “Nintendo and its developers and publishers lost an estimated $762 million in [...]
Hello,
Most of you all know that development of a game is expensive it can take in excess of 4 million dollars. Now production cost is also a part of development.
A million copies of the game is sold at 40 dollars a game low end figure… Then played and used for a brief period of time. Thats 36 million in profits ok I guess they didnt make enough revenue lets cut out overhead of 10 million just in case I am missing something and thats 26 million. Now we migrate the game once played to the second hand sales man which picks the game up for next to nothing then resales the game at half of its original price or better. Finally we have the rental outlets layed out accross the US who rent the games out untill there too scratched to play then take advantage of some guy trying to honestly pay for a game in an affordable manner…
Dont be fooled they make a crapload off of a game piracy or not 750,000 dollars is a drop in the bucket for them how do you think they afford to keep producing.
What is the real reasoning behind enforcement of piracy well I’ll tell you they are making way for internet 2. Once such an internet is establshed accross the globe piracy will be even tougher to detect with a full DVD being sent accross the world in a matter of seconds. They know this type of thing will be tough to police without taps or assumptions.
Just keep in mind it is the person who opposes the law consistantly who wins not the person that just sits back and complains weather it is the pirates or the ESA RIAA MPAA. While both piracy and the code of conduct may remain at battle for some years it is only opposition that will allow one side or the other to gain ground.
Buy your games purchase you consoles and purchase your modchips at will.
Hardware should not be tied down or constrained due to the fact someone puts a little bit of encryption on a device. One might argue that if the private encryption provided by a game system bypassing it is illegal then so should bypassing the private work of a homebrew coder producing code for the console which is open source and protected under the GNU.
Under the current DMCA it allows for archive of old files as well to save information from being lost.
The DMCA does provide rights to legal fair use as well and without a modchip they are taking away your right to fairly copy your media. Sure it costs a fortune to develop but piss on the consumer if it cost them another 40.00 to replace the game.
Fair use mechanisims should be required to be employed in every machine from HD all the way to Console games if this is not provided the owner should be allowed to bypass the encryption strictly for there own rights.
If they fail to allow this they should provide a replacement for a game free of charge I dont care how gentle you are with CD DVD or BD media it will get scratched in time just from playing it.
wow - who would of ever thought it would come to this? I mean, when I was playing nintendo as a youngster my only hope was that one day the graphics would be almost real - but when the fed’s are involved it really show’s the magnitude of the gaming industry and what will be done preserve the integrity of the Industry.
BTW -Cool post man, I honestly cant believe I havnt heard of this already.